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Thursday, December 12, 2013

How to Build a Fire (A New Approach to Dating)

I took the plunge. Kind of. Remember when I expertly crafted a blog about my personal dating life? Well I decided that if you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten. So I'm changing it up. I'm not going to go on plenty of fish or match.com (no judgment if you are using those, they're just not for me**) but I am willing to give Tinder a try.

For those of you who don't know, Tinder is linked through your Facebook. It then searches based on your location with a series of settings that you can adjust including your gender, the gender of the person you are looking for, the distance from you to matches and age range. You can also edit your profile so that you have different pictures (pulled from your Facebook photos) one of which is your "cover" photo that will be the first thing potential suitors will see of you. You can write things as well. Basically the premise is that Tinder finds people that fit your settings and shows you a picture, their name and their age as input into Facebook. You have three options:

Swipe Left (or press X) - decide "nope" that person is NOT for me for any number of reasons (see below)

Click on the picture - acquire more information in the form of more pictures and a little bio

For clarification purposes, I've acknowledged that people are going to choose me based on my main picture, so I'm not writing shit. Instead, I've chosen 4 pictures for their viewing pleasure should they click me for more info. The main picture is my Facebook profile picture of my mom, sister and myself from Thanksgiving. Then, if someone clicks through, they'll see me in my giraffe costume posed in a giraffe stance, a picture of me in a party hat and a blue dress, and a picture from a kickball tournament with me sweaty and my hair in braided pig tails. I think the picture set captures me and says "I don't usually wear make up and dresses. Sometimes I wear pigtails and am a sweaty gross mess. I know how to have a good time and be silly." Words aren't necessary yet. If someone wants to get to know me they can swipe right and if I've swiped right to you as well, you can ask me.

If you swipe right to someone and they swipe right to you, you are a match and you can chat and whatever. If you swipe left, that person goes away.

Here are a few reasons for why I've swiped left on most people I've come across (it's like a 100:1 ratio, I'm legitimately over-picky and I don't care) as told by the phrases I've actually said out loud in reference to them:

1. "Well THAT's a hairline...."

2. "You look old...even to me" (which is funny because I like old guys)

3. "25? YOU'RE A BABY!"

4. "There's a baby in your picture..."

5. "Why are you holding a fish?"

6. "Muscles like that take too much time commitment...and drugs...so...no"

7. "I've already 'dated' you."

8. "Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha" (usually in reference to someone I'm friends with in real life)

9. "You look short"

10. "I can't tell which one you are"

11. "Honestly...wear clothes. Please." (And yes, I say this to the super ripped guys... I think clothing is sexy)

12. "Dude...I don't care about your car."

13. "Oh look! Another gym pic! Joy."

And there are the things I've read in the little profile things:

"Thin is in" - um, fuck you in the ear canal

"I'm in town for the holidays and need some night time entertainment." - gross, just gross

"Why am I on this?" - I don't know, but your false insincerity is hilarious. You wrote a profile and posted pictures...this is a choice you obviously made willingly. No one believes that you don't know why you're on Tinder.

Well see if anything fun comes out of this. So far, I have a few matches, but I'm not going on blind-ish dates or anything. I tend to be easily spooked, so we'll take it step by step.

End.

**There are some very real and reasonable reasons for why traditional online dating is not for me, but you don't need to (or want to) know them... so please just trust me and do not try to convince me otherwise. Thank you.